This is a 324-page book with a black and white interior art. The PDF has nicely structured bookmarks although the index is not interactive (not clickable for navigation). The artwork by Matthew Adams is really neat*and full of character. The only name that I can find of the author is "noisms". Who ever he or she is, noisms is a very talented designer.

It begins with 19 or so pages of colorful fiction: a 1st-person narrative about the "Yellow City" by a foreign traveler. I was genuinely surprised by the revelation of two of the locations most prominent races. This hobby is typically rife with cliché fantasy peoples, such as elves, dwarves and other "Tolkienisms", so I knew that I was in for a treat.

Despite cultural and physiological differences, the peoples of the Yellow City all have three key desires in common: Opium, Tea and Knowledge. These ideas further break away from the usual medieval European tropes found in fantasy roleplaying games. My interest increased with each page turn.

We're given some descriptions of key details about the city and its surrounding geography. What I like about this section is the aforementioned 1st person narrative. Instead of generic descriptions, we're given impressions of someone walking through these areas and telling us about them. My only gripe was the overuse of the term "humble author". In one paragraph of five sentences, I counted five uses of the term. Having an author refusing to use "I" or "my" does make an interesting quirk but I wonder if this could've been handled a bit differently. It was repetitive and a bit corny. Otherwise the text is very well written and easy to read.

Each section feels unique and interesting. There's a chilling passage "paraphrasing" a local about several dangers in the jungle of Lahag. Most of these encounters are truly horrific or eerie and I would definitely use some of them in-game as rumors and the like for the PCs. You know, to get them into the mood. Wonderful stuff here and great mood-setting: cool-sounding names, quirky cultural traits, memorable locales and cleverly crafted ancient mysteries worth investigating.

There is, here and there, mention of some classic fantasy characteristics, but they are fully integrated into the setting and are not typical, much to my relief.

There's some very cool stuff in here: it gives the reader lots to think about. There are all kinds of bizarre, exotic and creepy locations. We get impressions of all sorts of dangerous and mysterious beings out there in dark, forgotten places or harsh, inhospitable environments. I became quite eager to jump into the meat of the book.

The next section of this book includes instructions on how to use it. We get a single page of step-by-step notes, followed by 6 pages of an example. I really liked this structured approach, especially in such a huge body of work. The whole book feels less daunting to grasp. The author clearly explains the intentions of this product and how best approach the different sections. Very well done.

The author introduces some broad themes or "mysteries" that form the backbone of a campaign set in Yoon-Suin. Cool stuff here.

Next, we get into the meat of the book, the Chapters.

Chapter 1 is about character creation. While the author suggests foreign PCs (so that the characters can truly explore and experience that world for the first time), we're given background tables, races and even a new class for characters who are natives of Yoon-Suin. This is a simple, straightforward and interesting. My only disappointment was the inclusion of the Dwarf race, even if it "feels" a bit different than the usual trope. If and hopefully when I run this, I think that I might omit the Dwarf race because it seems too familiar to me.

Chapter 2 is a bestiary (43 pages). We get nice, short stat blocks, brief descriptions and a sidebar for each to explain where they are most likely found on the map. The entries are sorted alphabetically, but I would have liked to have seen a list index at the start of the chapter. There are no illustrations in this section, which is unfortunate: the artist's drawings in other places hint at these creatures and the bestiary would have benefited from individual visual treatments. For now, the DM and players are left to picturing these beings with their imaginations: for all I know, this might prove to create a level of weirdness beyond any illustration so it could work.

Except for two entries, the creatures in this bestiary are awesome and original. We get all kinds of giant sea creatures that I've never encountered in any monster manuals (so far), but I'm familiar with them from watching nature documentaries. There are entries for some of the mysterious and horrible dangers from the introductory fiction, which was nice to have. All in all a great bestiary, despite the lack of visuals.

Chapter 3 is where things get really interesting.

There's material covering the Yellow City itself, the suggested core hub of any adventuring party from outside of Yoon-Suin. This is the part that reminded me the most of the books from Sine Nomine Publishing: a toolkit to create your own city with practically system-agnostic tags. There's wonderfully laid out tables and charts for generating and customizing NPCs, locales and conflicts. Most of it is organized by Factions and/or Locations (the two are often intertwined). It all works quite well.

There are also some quick n' dirty tables to create general NPCs, rumors and hooks, random locations, encounters (the two are paired) and city quarters or neighborhoods. All of it shares the same consistent feel and helps to build up the promised characteristics of the Yellow City.

The chapter then includes tables to generate locations and encounters outside of the city itself but close enough to be explored without going too far. The Lairs were particularly fun, each with a column for "Twists". *The author even included some sample hex contents: all of which have very imaginative encounters and descriptions. They have far more depth than just "2d4 monsters" type of encounters that I've seen in other RPG supplements.

The part covering* "Old Town" has a detailed*process for running exploratory adventures. It is simple enough, but with enough variables so that well-prepared PCs will feel a difference compared to those who just rush in carelessly. As usual, these tables cover things like random encounters (usually antagonists), special sites, some pre-made special sites if you don't want to bother randomly piecing them together on the spot, all manner of NPCs, ruins and a "Getting Lost" table which is far cooler than it sounds. There is a great deal of material in here: it is actually surprising to me how much content has been squeezed into this book so far and we're only halfway through!

Nearly all of these tables are prefaced with brief suggestions or instructions by the author: another good move. I'm liking this product more and more.

In all honesty, you could run an entire campaign just within the Yellow City and the Old Town. I'm very impressed.

Chapter 4 is about the surrounding wilderness and "Hundred Kingdoms" beyond the Yellow City.

The simple way in which the DM can create individual "Polities" (organized societies) reminds me a lot of the toolkits in Dungeon world for creating Steadings. The best part is giving each community its own "Issues" and "Assets", each with its own hooks, suggested NPCs and general "things" (inspirational tags).

The rest of this section is very similar, in terms of structure, to Chapter 3: lots and lots of tables to create factions, locations, NPCs, rumors, adventure hooks and endless places to explore and interact with.

One part stood out: "the Ghosts of Lahag" which allows the DM to generate interesting and unique haunting spirits. I liked those two pages enough that I'm sticking them into my D&D monster manual for the ghost entry.

Chapters 5 and 6, like its predecessors, are extremely rich toolsets for creating huge and diverse settings. There's an almost overwhelming amount of usable content here and it would take forever to go over it all here. I was truly amazed at the sheer amount of content in these four chapters.

The PDFs bookmarks are a crucial asset to navigating this book: it does not feel disorganized, just very, very dense.

The Appendices provide tables to handle setting-wide subjects, such as poisons, opium, teas, fortune telling and notes about language. A few highlights:

   
• Opium: their color, effect(s) (eg: deadens fear, enhance senses, memory loss) and means of ingestion (taken into the bloodstream by smearing it on the sting of a Giant Bee instead of a syringe)

   
• Specialist Teas: how to prepare (eg: boiled inside monkey skull) and side effects (eg: aphrodisiac)

   
• Useful Worms, Arachnids and Insects: useful creatures that replace typical domesticated work animals typical to fantasy settings

   
• Magical Tattoos: risky, but with a chance for enchanted magical boons

...and lots, lots more. Seriously, even the Appendices are dense with cool material. Most of the content in this section will gain a permanent place in my DM binder.

The Maps section is also very well done: each includes a hand-drawn illustration (perfect for player hand-outs) as well as a clear, full-color, computer-generated hex grid (for the DM's reference: each tile is numbered so it's ready to be pre-populated with encounters before a game session).

Summary

This is probably one of the most impressive gaming supplements (let alone campaign settings) that I've ever come across. In my opinion it stands up with*works by Kevin Crawford (eg: Stars Without Number and Silent Legions) and Zak Smith (eg: Vornheim and A Red and Pleasant Land). There is an incredibly vast amount of rich and flavorful content in this book that I feel overwhelmed. There is a plethora of re-usable material for virtually any campaign you're running, even if it doesn't take place in Yoon-Suin.

My only gripe is that I wish there were more illustrations: they're awesome and this setting's material begs for more artwork.

I can't recommend this enough: this is a must-have for any DM or game designer. It is a fantastic work.

You can find this product on http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/144820/YoonSuin" target="_blank">DriveThruRPG.

Reading your review I am tempted to buy this PDF. However, I would like to know about the implied RPG ruleset for which this book has been done, or if it can be used with any RPG (I mean, if it is devoid of game mechanics). It's vaguely indicated it's for OSR games?

Quote from: Turanil;818643Reading your review I am tempted to buy this PDF. However, I would like to know about the implied RPG ruleset for which this book has been done, or if it can be used with any RPG (I mean, if it is devoid of game mechanics). It's vaguely indicated it's for OSR games?

I'm the author. All the Yoon-Suin games I've run have used BECMI/Rules Cyclopedia. It is largely "TSR D&D neutral" in the sense that it is rather mechanics-lite, but what mechanics do exist can easily be ported to, say, OD&D or LotFP or AD&D 2nd edition or whatever by any DM with any experience.

To provide an example, bestiary entries have HD, AC, #ATT, Damage per attack, Move rate, Treasure Type. You can use that in any variant of D&D through to 2nd edition, or any OSR variant - the only thing you'd have to change would be flipping AC between descending or ascending or maybe tweaking Treasure Type as necessary.

Excellent, I am going to put this on my must-buy list...